us-led cooperative theater missile defense in northeast asia · defense. second, he characterizes...

AIR WAR COLLEGEAIR UNIVERSITY

US-Led CooperativeTheater Missile Defense in

Northeast Asia

Challenges and Issues

REX R. KIZIAHLieutenant Colonel, USAF

Air War CollegeMaxwell Paper No. 21

MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, ALABAMA

July 2000

AIR UNI V ERSITY

Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within aresolely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of AirUniversity, the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any otherUS government agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.

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This Maxwell Paper, and others in the series, is availableelectronically at the Air University Research web sitehttp://research.maxwell.af.mil under “Research Papers”then “Special Collections.”

Foreword

In this paper, Lt Col Rex R. Kiziah, USAF, examines cur-rent US efforts to cooperatively develop and deploy withJapan and South Korea a theater missile defense (TMD) fam-ily of systems (FoS) in Northeast Asia. First, the author sum-marizes the US security strategy for the East Asia-Pacificregion with emphasis on the importance of regional missiledefense. Second, he characterizes the ballistic missile capa-bilities of North Korea and China, which constitute the pri-mary threat in the region and have spurred increased USand allied pursuit of advanced TMD systems. Third, the au-thor discusses the advantages, country-specific issues andstatus of cooperative US, Japanese, and South KoreanTMD developmental activities. Finally, Colonel Kiziah de-tails some of the complex regional security issues associ-ated with US, Japanese, and South Korean missile defenseactivities vis-à-vis China and Taiwan; the challenges inameliorating Chinese concerns; and the prospects of long-term partnering and fielding of a tri-country, integrated re-gional TMD system.

Responding to increasing North Korean and Chinese bal-listic missile threats, the United States has placed a highpriority on developing and deploying a Northeast Asian re-gional TMD FoS by the 2010 time frame. Motivated by thebenefits of burden and technology sharing, increased sys-tem effectiveness, and strengthened US-allied security re-lationships, US officials have worked extensively with theJapanese and South Koreans for more than a decade to es-tablish a cooperative TMD acquisition program.

The August 1998 North Korean launch of a Taepo Dong-1 across the Japanese archipelago helped to secure USsuccess with Japan, at least for the short term. ColonelKiziah discusses the recently negotiated US-Japan cooper-ative, three-year research and development program andidentifies the many challenges in long-term continued co-operation through TMD deployment. By contrast, SouthKorean leadership has increasingly resisted partneringwith the United States and Japan on TMD development ac-tivities and, at odds with US regional nonproliferation

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goals, has been pursuing development of an indigenous,offensive missile deterrence against Pyongyang.

The author argues that US success with Japan in pur-suing a regional TMD capability has increased the tensionsbetween the United States and China and between Chinaand Japan. Although these heightened tensions shouldnot yet be construed as seriously increasing the securityrisks within the region, Chinese concerns regarding a USand allied regional TMD FoS need to be addressed soonerrather than later. The Chinese concerns are many buttheir principal one seems to be that an effective TMD sys-tem significantly mitigates China’s principal means of co-ercing Taiwan into reintegration with the mainland overthe next 15- to 20-year time frame. Colonel Kiziah con-cludes that, since the Chinese have never wavered in theirpublic goal of eventually regaining Taiwan, the US andJapanese leadership must seriously address Chinese con-cerns. Concerted efforts to engage the Chinese leadershipand build mutually trusting relationships are requiredover the next 10- to 15-year period as a Northeast Asianregional TMD system becomes operational.

The Air War College encourages discussion and debateon Colonel Kiziah’s examination of Northeast Asian re-gional TMD issues and challenges.

DAVID F. MacGHEE, JR.Major General, USAFCommandant, Air War College

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About the Author

Lt Col Rex R. Kiziah (BS, US Air Force Academy[USAFA]; PhD, The University of Texas at Austin) is cur-rently the deputy chief, Theater Air Defense Division in theAir Staff’s Directorate of Global Power Programs. Previousassignments include serving as the Air Force ResearchLaboratory commander’s representative to the NationalReconnaissance Office; deputy program manager of the Of-fice of the Secretary of Defense Counterproliferation Sup-port Program; special assistant for research and technol-ogy for the assistant to the Secretary of Defense forNuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs; asso-ciate professor of physics at the USAFA; and section chiefand neutral particle beam research officer at the Air ForceWeapons Laboratory. He is a graduate of Squadron OfficerSchool, Air Command and Staff College, a 1998 graduateof the Defense Systems Management College and a 2000graduate of the Air War College.

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US-Led CooperativeTheater Missile Defense in

Northeast Asia

On 31 August 1998, North Korea flight-tested a new,three-stage, medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM)/spacelaunch vehicle (SLV) referred to by Western analysts andreporters as the Taepo Dong-1. The Taepo Dong-1 tra-versed a range of approximately 1,000 miles on a trajectoryconsistent with a satellite launch, which took it across theJapanese archipelago. Its first stage fell into the Sea ofJapan, the second stage landed in the Pacific Ocean off theSanriku coast of northeastern Honshu, and the third stagefailed during powered flight.1 After maintaining four daysof silence, North Korean officials stated that the Western-labeled MRBM flight test was not the test firing of a ballis-tic missile but was a three-stage rocket launch of a smallsatellite, Kwangmyongsong (Bright Star), into a low-earthorbit with a period of approximately three hours. The USSpace Command’s extensive space surveillance networkdetected no satellite entering orbit or subsequently onorbit. Whether the 31 August 1998 North Korean eventwas an attempted satellite launch, or an MRBM test-flight,will perhaps never be decided conclusively,2 nonetheless,the event was pivotal in that it was a very unpleasant sur-prise to US, Japanese, and South Korean officials and an-alysts. The US intelligence community had predicted thelaunch of the missile, but the existence of the third stagewas completely unknown. Experts had assessed that theNorth Koreans could not master staging technologies—atleast not yet.3 Analysis of a video of the test flight revealedthat the first stage of the Taepo Dong-1 was a No Dong,and the second stage was a Scud-C. Cyrillic numberingcovered portions of the missile, suggesting possible Russ-ian involvement—both materials and technical expertise—in the Taepo Dong-1’s construction.4

The aftermath of this sputnik-like event has been sig-nificant, yet different for the United States, Japan, andSouth Korea. Within the United States, the Taepo Dong-1missile test intensified nonproliferation, counterprolifera-

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tion, and confidence and security building measures andactivities. Government leaders immediately placed in-creased emphasis on developing and deploying a nationalmissile defense (NMD) to defend the US homeland fromrogue nations’ intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM)and regional theater missile defense (TMD) systems forprotection of US troops and facilities abroad. For Japan,with whom the United States has been discussing cooper-ative acquisition of a regional TMD system since the in-ception of the national Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983to no substantive avail, other than a myriad of studies, theTaepo Dong-1 test flight enraged both the public and bu-reaucrats, propelling them from their customary glacialpolitical pace into warp drive.5 After years of indecision, inAugust 1999 the Japanese decided to join the United Statesin a cooperative TMD research and development (R&D)program. Unlike the Japanese, and much to the dismay ofUS officials, the South Korean leadership responded to theTaepo Dong incident with renewed vigor in its efforts to in-digenously develop ballistic missiles, exacerbating the dif-ficulties the United States faces in its efforts to eventuallyforge a single, integrated TMD regional system for North-east Asia and at glaring odds with the US top foreign pol-icy priority of nonproliferation.

In this paper, I discuss in some detail the US-led effortsto develop and deploy a TMD system within NortheastAsia, highlighting many of the regional security issues andchallenges associated with these efforts and providing in-formation that may aid in understanding the US, Japan-ese, and South Korean responses to the North KoreanTaepo Dong incident. First, I summarize the US policy andstrategy on TMD in general and with respect to NortheastAsia. I then briefly characterize the Northeast Asian re-gional security threats as perceived by the United States,Japan, and South Korea. Next, I discuss the advantages ofcooperative TMD development and deployment, followedby a description of the recently initiated US-Japan cooper-ative TMD R&D program and an analysis of South Korea’sstance on TMD. Lastly, I discuss the complex security is-sues (focused on China and Taiwan) associated with de-veloping a US-Japan-South Korea regional TMD systemand the prospects for successful deployment.

2 THEATER MISSILE DEFENSE

United States Theater MissileDefense Policy and Strategy

The 1999 US National Security Strategy for a New Cen-tury and, more specifically, the 1998 United States SecurityStrategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region (or East Asia Strat-egy Report [EASR]) define the engagement strategy and ob-jectives for promoting US interests in the Asia-Pacific re-gion. A salient point of these documents is that thestrategy of engagement is aimed at promoting “a stable, se-cure, prosperous and peaceful Asia-Pacific community inwhich the United States is an active partner and benefici-ary [one benefit being approximately $500 billion a year intrans-Pacific trade].”6 Playing a key role in executing thisstrategy is the US military, which not only deters potentialaggressors but also shapes the security environment toprevent regional security challenges from emerging.Thomas Christensen, of the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology, in a 1999 International Security article on theEast Asia security dilemma, notes that “most scholars . . .seem to agree with U.S. officials and local leaders that amajor factor in containing potential tensions in East Asiais the continuing presence of the U.S. military, particularlyin Japan.”7 Christensen further asserts that, because ofthe intense, historically based mistrust among the North-east Asian leaders, maintaining a US military presence inJapan is critically important for regional stability.Nonetheless, he persuasively supports the view that “theUnited States faces tough challenges in maintaining theUS-Japan alliance in a form that reassures both Japanand its neighbors.”8

One of the key components of the US’s Northeast Asianengagement strategy to which Christensen’s view applies isthe extremely challenging US effort to cooperatively ac-quire with Japan and South Korea an integrated, regionalTMD system. With a national commitment to maintain ap-proximately 100,000 military personnel along with thenecessary infrastructure in Japan and South Korea, a topUS defense priority is deterring the use of ballistic missiles,and if used the protection of US and allied troops andbases from ballistic missiles armed with conventional, nu-clear, biological, or chemical warheads. In fact, due to the

KIZIAH 3

widespread proliferation and threat of the use of ballisticmissile-delivered weapons of mass destruction (WMD)against US forward-deployed personnel, TMD has emergedas the Department of Defense’s (DOD) number one missiledefense priority.9 This sense of urgency and momentumhas permeated US security relationships in NortheastAsia, especially since the regional shock of the August1998 Taepo Dong 1 test-firing. Although the US views a re-gional TMD system as a purely defensive system, comple-menting its offensive forces and bolstering its ability todeter potential aggression and coercion throughout the re-gion, Christensen highlights and provides compelling ar-guments that key actors in the region, especially China,may nonetheless perceive this supposedly defensive-onlysystem as very provocative. I discuss some of these argu-ments, and others, in the last part of this paper, but first Idescribe the perceived threats to regional security and sta-bility in the region, emphasizing theater ballistic missiles.

Northeast Asian Regional Security Threats

The two key players in Northeast Asia whose military ca-pabilities and actions are perceived by the United States,Japan, and South Korea as threatening to the security andstability of the region are North Korea and China. TheNorth Korean threat is probably best and most succinctlydescribed in the 1998 EASR: “Its August 1998 missilelaunch, which overflew Japan, underscored for the entireregion that North Korea, despite its domestic hardship,continues to pose a threat not only on the Peninsula but tocommon regional security.”10

Of most concern to South Korea and to the US person-nel stationed in the country, the North Koreans have sev-eral hundred indigenously produced (with technical assis-tance from China) short-range ballistic missiles(SRBM)—the road-mobile Scud-Bs (300-kilometer [km]maximum range, 1,000-kilogram [kg] maximum payload)and Scud-Cs (600-km, 500-kg)—deployed for strategic“terror” and tactical strikes against logistical nodes andurban areas in the event of a conflict. The Scud-C’s rangeencompasses all of South Korea.


North Korea’s Ballistic Missile Capabilities

Posing a threat to both Japan and South Korea, theNorth Koreans have also deployed an undetermined num-ber of MRBMs—the No Dong single-stage missile with amaximum range of 1,300 km—giving them the capabilityto strike much of Japan from Okinawa to Hokkaido, whichincludes all US bases on the archipelago. As highlightedearlier, Pyongyang has developed and recently tested athree-stage MRBM/SLV, the Taepo Dong-1, with a maxi-mum range of more than 2,000 km and a payload capac-ity of several hundred kilograms, bringing the entire groupof Japanese islands within its strike capabilities. Lastly, aspart of its ongoing and ambitious ballistic missile develop-ment programs, North Korea is developing the TaepoDong-2 ICBM, the two-stage version having an estimatedmaximum range of 6,000 km or more, thus placing thewestern part of Alaska, the far western portions of theHawaiian Island chain, East Asia, and major parts ofSoutheast Asia within its reach. A three-stage versioncould reach the western portion of the continental UnitedStates. The Taepo Dong-2 has not yet been flight tested. Itis interesting, but not surprising, to note that the NorthKorean leadership asserts that its ballistic missiles areneeded for self-defense, particularly against the UnitedStates, and that satellite development is a sovereignright.11 Apparently, emerging on the world scene as aspace-faring nation is a national priority for Kim Jong Il,even as his nation is collapsing from economic distressand mass starvation.

All of North Korea’s ballistic missiles are assessed tobe capable of carrying its panoply of conventional high-explosive, biological, or chemical warheads (and possibly nu-clear). The Japanese Defense Agency Chief, Hosei Norota,recently stated that there were several factories in NorthKorea that were producing “toxic gas and germs” thatcould be weaponized.12 A US Central Intelligence Agencydocument released in early February 2000 reported that“North Korea produces and is capable of using a wide va-riety of chemical and possibly biological agents, as well astheir delivery means.”13 There is also concern in the UnitedStates, Japan, and South Korea that the North Koreans

KIZIAH 5

have the material to develop, or have already secretly de-veloped, one or more nuclear devices, particularly sincethey appear to have violated the 1994 Agreed Frameworkby maintaining a covert nuclear capability.14

North Korean Leadership Intentions

Exacerbating the threat perceived by the United States,Japan, and South Korea because of its ballistic missile andWMD capabilities is the cloak of secrecy enveloping NorthKorean leadership actions and the apparent irrationality ofthe majority of Kim Jong Il’s actions, resulting in the in-ability to even remotely gauge his intentions. A prime ex-ample is the August 1998 Taepo Dong-1 flight test. As Tae-woo Kim, Policy Research Office director for the UnitedLiberal Democratic Party, Republic of Korea, discusses inhis May–June 1999 Asian Survey article, Kim Jong Il’s de-cision and timing of the launch of the Taepo Dong-1 ap-pear to be a completely irrational act to outsiders.15 How-ever, Mr. Kim argues that Kim Jong Il is not irrational butis “dangerously calculative,” and his actions are aimed atregime survival and coping with his nation’s severe eco-nomic crisis. Reaching basically the same conclusion, butreferring to Kim Jong Il’s actions as missile blackmail andextortion, Richard Fisher of the Heritage Foundation ar-gues that the Taepo Dong missile test was an effort to ex-tort money from the United States. Specifically, the test fir-ing quickly followed a June 1998 North Korean CentralNews Agency announcement and August 1998 North Ko-rean officials’ discussions with congressional staff mem-bers demanding US compensation of $500M per year forNorth Korea to halt its missile exports as well as foregoingreinitiation of its nuclear weapons program.16 Whetherthese views of Kim Jong Il’s actions and intentions are cor-rect is debatable, but it is apparent that assessing theNorth Korean threat to regional security and stability willnecessarily be replete with uncertainties.

Chinese Leadership Intentions

Like North Korea, the secretive barrier behind whichleadership actions occur complicates assessment of the


true threat that China poses to Northeast Asian regionalsecurity and, therefore, necessarily frustrates outside at-tempts to understand Chinese intentions. Whether or notChina has regional hegemonic aspirations is unclear.Stephen Cambone of the Center for Strategic and Interna-tional Studies in Washington, D.C., notes: “Observers haveyet to agree on China’s intentions beyond recognizing thatit will no longer allow itself to be treated as anything otherthan a great power.”17 Furthermore, China views its ballis-tic missile forces as an essential element of great-powerstatus as demonstrated by its firing of nuclear-capableSRBMs across the Taiwan Strait to intimidate Taiwaneseleadership in 1995 and 1996, veiled threats to use itsICBMs against the United States if the United States sup-ports Taiwan in a conflict with China, and its vociferouscondemnation of US-planned NMD development and de-ployment as destabilizing to the US-Chinese strategic rela-tionship. Thus, there is both an international and regionalfocus on China’s growing military power.

China’s Ballistic Missile Forces andMilitary Modernization

For at least a decade, China has increased its defenseexpenditures annually (estimated at around 10 percent peryear) and, in a savvy, methodical fashion, has been mod-ernizing the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) across theboard—acquisition of advanced fighter aircraft and a rangeof power-projection platforms along with programs to de-velop advanced surface-to-air missiles, land-attack andantiship cruise missiles and mobile ballistic missiles. And,according to Fisher, the PLA places the highest modern-ization priority on its missile forces for the following rea-sons: (1) the PLA desires a variety of nuclear and nonnu-clear ballistic missiles to deter US support for Taiwan andto project power throughout Asia; (2) China cannot mod-ernize its air force and navy without significant outside as-sistance, but can itself develop a variety of modern ballis-tic missiles (with foreign missile technologies which Chinahas demonstrated adeptness at obtaining via cooperation,purchase, and espionage); and (3) ballistic missiles providean asymmetric form of attack against the United States

KIZIAH 7

and potential adversaries which currently, and for at least10 years into the future, have no effective theater ballisticmissile defenses.18

China’s SRBMs are its cheapest and most effective op-tion for neutralizing Taiwan’s technologically superior airforce and air defenses. It is estimated that 100 to 150 ofthe nuclear-capable, but currently conventionally armed,600-km range DF-15 and 300-km-range DF-11 missilesare now deployed for potential strikes against Taiwaneseairbases, ports, command and control centers, and earlywarning systems.19 The PLA is improving the accuracy ofthese missiles with integrated, enhanced guidance andsatellite navigation technologies, possibly increasing theDF-15’s circular error probable (CEP) by an order of mag-nitude from 300 to 30 meters (m).20 Additionally, in one ortwo years, the PLA will complete development of maneu-verable versions of these missiles, thus providing the ca-pability to reach targets previously geographically ob-scured.21 According to Fisher, the US intelligencecommunity has estimated that China could deploy up to650 of the DF-11s and DF-15s by 2005.22 Although pre-sumably directed at preventing Taiwan from declaring per-manent independence from the Chinese nation, theseSRBMs are also of concern to Japan because they could beused against the sea and air lines of communication in theEast China Sea.

In addition to a robust force of SRBMs, China possessesa significant number of MRBMs and intermediate rangeballistic missiles (IRBM) that can be armed with conven-tional or nuclear warheads, and new ones are under de-velopment. Japan is well within range of all the MRBMsand IRBMs. The current inventory consists of the nuclear-tipped, 2,800-km range DF-3/3As and 1,800+-km rangeDF-21/21As.23 The PLA may have more than 80 of theroad- and rail-mobile DF-21s deployed. It has also been re-ported that China recently fielded an advanced version ofthe DF-21, referred to as the DF-21X, with a range of2,900 km and significantly improved accuracy, perhaps assmall as 50-m CEP.

China also possesses a sizable force of ICBMs, currentlyassessed to be relatively inaccurate and armed with onlyone nuclear warhead per missile. US intelligence estimates


range from 18 to 26 DF-5/5A 13,000-km range ICBMs.24

However, the Chinese have intensely pursued multiple in-dependently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) capabilitiesfor many years. Having obtained information on the UnitedStates’s smallest and most modern nuclear warhead,China could combine such a warhead with smaller reentryvehicles and reconfigure its multisatellite bus developedfor launching Motorola Iridium satellites and convert theDF-5 into an eight-warhead MIRVed ICBM.25 Two ChineseICBM development programs are underway—the 8,000-kmrange DF-31 and 12,000-km range DF-41—both of whichare mobile ICBMs and are expected to be MIRVed. The DF-31 and DF-41 ICBMs are estimated to be operational by2003 and 2010, respectively.

Realizing that its ballistic missile forces may be more ef-fective in accomplishing regional and strategic objectives ifsome of them are equipped with extremely powerful, highlyaccurate, nonnuclear warheads as opposed to nuclear, theChinese have substantial efforts devoted to developingradio-frequency (RF) weapons and cluster munitions.26

With significant reduction for the likelihood of US nuclear re-taliation, the PLA could use RF-armed or cluster munitions-filled ballistic missiles to strike command and control net-works, power grids, carrier battle groups, airbases, ports,and other infrastructure targets throughout Northeast Asia.

The bottom line is that China is well on its way to pos-sessing formidable regional (and beyond) force-projectioncapabilities via its ballistic missiles by 2010, a time periodthat allows for development and deployment of a regionalTMD system, if pursued aggressively. Further heighteningUS and Japanese concern about the need for regional TMDis China’s evolving security policy. The PLA appears to beshifting from a “minimum” to a “limited” nuclear deter-rence strategy—not just developing a minimal capability totarget a few key cities in the United States or Russia, butdeveloping the capability to strike targets regionally or out-side the region in such a manner as to gain a strategic ad-vantage but control escalation and minimize nuclear retal-iation. Additionally, PLA missile doctrine has increasinglyemphasized the use of nonnuclear armed ballistic missilesfor a variety of military actions at the regional level. That

KIZIAH 9

such a strategy may work to China’s strategic advantagewas clearly demonstrated in July 1995 when the PLA’sSecond Artillery fired six DF-15s north to an East ChinaSea impact area 90 miles north of Taipei and again inMarch 1996 with four DF-11s impacting at ocean pointsbracketing the island. As David Wiencek, a Washington,D.C.-based international security analyst, noted, “Thesetests were one of the most striking uses of ballistic missilesfor the purposes of political intimidation ever seen.”27

Adding to the threat, Chinese officials also issued warn-ings in both 1995 and 1996 that the PLA could attack Tai-wan without fearing substantive US military interventionbecause US leaders “care more about Los Angeles thanthey do about Taiwan.”28 These euphemistically termed“missile tests” clearly indicated that China was a seriouspower and would have an impact on the regional securityenvironment.

Theater Missile Defense Description andCooperative Development and Deployment

Both the North Korean and Chinese ballistic missile andWMD capabilities are credible and growing threats to theinterests of the United States, Japan, and South Korea.Both North Korean and Chinese leadership have not hesi-tated to demonstrate their willingness to use their ballisticmissile arsenals in a threatening manner against othercountries in the region. To deter and counter these in-creasingly sophisticated and destructive ballistic missilethreats, the United States is pursuing several TMD devel-opment programs as part of a time-phased acquisition ofmultitiered, interoperable land-, sea-, and air-based sys-tems that will provide defense in-depth against a wide va-riety of theater ballistic missiles. This integrated combina-tion of systems is called the TMD Family of Systems (FoS).The FoS approach provides multitiered defenses—terminaldefense (low tier systems), endo- and exo-atmospheric in-tercepts (upper tier systems) and boost-phase intercept—which increase overall system robustness, that is, killprobability and efficiency.


Lower-tier systems such as the Patriot Advanced Capa-bility-3 (PAC-3) and the Navy Area Defense system are de-signed to defeat SRBMs. The PAC-3 will provide air defenseof ground combat forces and high-value assets. The pro-jected date for the first equipped unit is FY 2001. Likewise,the Navy Area Defense will provide a capability to protectUS and allied forces and important assets at sea and incoastal regions. The goal for the first unit equipped for thissystem is FY 2003. Upper-tier systems under developmentare the Theater High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) andNavy Theater Wide (NTW) systems. They are designed todefeat MRBMs and IRBMs by intercepting the missiles athigh altitudes, thus providing effective protection of broadareas, dispersed assets, and population centers. The USobjective is to field an upper-tier system capability by2007. Lastly, the United States is developing the AirborneLaser system for boost-phase intercept of theater ballisticmissiles. A demonstration to lethally shoot down a realis-tic target is planned for late 2003. By developing and de-ploying a regional TMD FoS, the United States hopes todeter countries such as North Korea and China from usingballistic missiles in an attempt to achieve political and mil-itary objectives, and if missiles are used, to protect US mil-itary personnel deployed abroad, defend military installa-tions such as ports and airfields, and protect US allies andfriends.

Cooperative Theater Missile Defense Developmentand Fielding

The United States desires to cooperatively develop anddeploy an integrated regional TMD system with Japan andSouth Korea. As delineated by Secretary Cohen in his 1998Annual Report to the President and the Congress, the gen-eral objectives of US TMD cooperation with allies are to (1)strengthen US security relationships, (2) enhance the US’scounterproliferation efforts, (3) share the burden of devel-oping and fielding defenses, (4) enhance interoperabilitybetween US forces and those of allies and friends, and (5)share knowledge for the mutual benefit of both the UnitedStates and its partners.29 Probably the biggest motivationfor the US’s desire to cooperate is cost sharing. Bruce Ben-

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nett, a RAND Corporation researcher specializing in coun-terproliferation and force improvement issues, estimatesthe development and deployment costs for an East Asianregional TMD system could be $10 billion or more.30 In anera of declining defense budgets, cooperation with alliesmay be the only way to affordably develop and field suchexpensive weapon systems. Dr. Paul G. Kaminski, thenunder secretary of defense for acquisition and technology,stated in a February 1995 speech: “That means increasedemphasis on cooperation with our allies in acquisition ofdefense equipment.”31 Adding to this Department of De-fense policy, especially for Japan, was the increasing in-sistence of many government officials, driven by the grow-ing trade tensions between the United States and Japanduring the 1980s and 1990s, that Japan should get nomore free rides and must play a central role in the fund-ing, research, and procurement of a regional TMD system.Attempting to capitalize on this Pentagon atmosphere of al-lied cooperation for large defense acquisitions and makingJapan pay its fair share, the Navy strongly advocated co-operative TMD to procure additional dollars for its under-funded NTW development program.

Another important reason for cooperating on an inte-grated, multicountry, regional TMD system is that such asystem would be more effective at locating, tracking, andintercepting ballistic missiles than would be a systemfielded by a single country—multiple, dispersed, earlywarning radars can locate and track the target more accu-rately than can a single radar or multiple radars located inthe same general area. Closely related is that single-coun-try deployment of a regional TMD system would likely un-dermine the interoperability and defense cooperation be-tween US, Japanese, and South Korean forces. And, froma pragmatic viewpoint, the United States intends to de-velop and deploy TMD to protect its forward-deployed per-sonnel and assets; not protecting supporting allied forcesand local populations would most likely destroy coalitionefforts.

If the United States and its allies did not cooperate in amissile defense system, allied confidence in US defensecommitments could erode and lead to Japan and SouthKorea developing and deploying offensive missiles (perhaps


including nuclear warheads) to deter China. CooperativeTMD would supplement and enhance the effectiveness ofthe US nuclear umbrella, providing a much broader andmore flexible deterrent to coercion and aggression in theregion. Countries’ susceptibility to nuclear blackmail byrogue nations such as North Korea should be reduced, andChina may become less apt to flex its “missile muscles.”32

Additionally, Fisher believes that cooperative TMD couldcreate incentives, especially for the Chinese, to negotiate areduction in the numbers of nuclear weapons and ballisticmissiles, arguing that the reduced utility of ballistic mis-siles resulting from deployment of an effective regionalTMD system would enhance mutual confidence. Also, co-operative deployment of regional TMD would provide theUnited States and its allies the credibility to approachChina on the issue of shared missile defense.33

Given the North Korean and Chinese ballistic missileand WMD capabilities and their propensity to use thesecapabilities in antagonistic ways against their neighbors inthe region and the United States, and given the myriad ofseemingly beneficial reasons to work “hand-in-glove” witheach other, one would think there would be a commonstrategic interest and strong motivations for the UnitedStates, Japan, and South Korea to cooperatively developand deploy a Northeast Asian regional TMD system. How-ever, the complex security issues associated with deployingTMD in Northeast Asia and the diversely perceived impactson stability and country-to-country relationships compli-cate the decisions to cooperate and the extent of that co-operation.

US-Japan Cooperative Theater MissileDefense Activities

Ironically, North Korea, the threatening nation whoseballistic missiles a Northeast Asian regional TMD systemwould ostensibly be designed to thwart, managed to jumpstart substantive cooperation between the United Statesand Japan with its August 1998 Taepo Dong-1 flight test.On 16 August 1999, US DOD Under Secretary of Defensefor Acquisition and Technology Jacques Gansler, andJapan Defense Agency Director General of the Bureau of

KIZIAH 13

Equipment Kozo Oikawa, signed a memorandum of under-standing (MOU) detailing a three-year, cooperative TMDR&D program.34 The United States will spend around $36million (M) on the cooperative program; the Japanese arecommitted to spending an equitable, but unspecifiedamount. Their government’s fiscal 1999 (April 1999–March2000) budget included approximately $8M for the R&D ef-fort; future years budget amounts were still under consid-eration at the time the MOU was signed.35 The regionalTMD architecture that the cooperative effort supports is asea-based missile defense system, specifically a systemsuch as the Navy’s NTW which would be deployed withinapproximately 12 years and provide an antiballistic missileshield with a radius of about 3,000 km. Previous studies,both bilateral US-Japan feasibility studies and unilateralanalyses, had indicated that an NTW-like system providedthe most cost-effective missile defense for the Japanese ar-chipelago and was the most fruitful for collaboration. Thefoundation of the NTW system is the Aegis radar-equippedwarships. Japan already operates four Aegis destroyersthat could be modified to serve as TMD platforms and isconsidering procuring two additional Aegis ships.36

More specifically, the MOU is an agreement that theUnited States and Japan will cooperatively conduct athree-year preliminary design and analysis effort, includ-ing risk mitigation and developmental activities, on evolv-ing the Standard Missile-3 Block I into a Block II variant.37

Four areas of R&D were identified: the missile’s lightweightnose cone, advanced kinetic warhead, infrared seeker sen-sor, and second-stage propulsion. The goal of this cooper-ative requirements analysis and design (RA&D) effort is tospecify the design and select the technologies for thesefour missile subcomponents. Although the United Statesclearly intends to move into the next acquisition phase,demonstration and validation, at the conclusion of a suc-cessful cooperative RA&D effort, there is no commitmentby either side to cooperate beyond the R&D activities. Atthe conclusion of the three-year effort, both sides may endthe partnership with full rights to the commonly developedtechnologies.38 Nevertheless, US Embassy Mutual DefenseAssistance Office personnel in Japan have noted thatJapanese political consensus for the demonstration and


validation phase currently exists, and both the UnitedStates and Japanese developed the cooperative TMD pro-gram with the intent of joint production and deployment ofan NTW Block II system in 2012.39 Authors of a House In-ternational Relations Committee report surmised that, ifthe jointly developed technologies are validated, Japancould ultimately spend $300–$500M on the shared devel-opment of a regional TMD system. However, as KeizoTakemi, the Japanese secretary for foreign affairs, clari-fied, the Japanese participation in a TMD system is nowonly at a cooperative research stage.40

If the Japanese were to continue to cooperate with theUnited States after the three-year preliminary design andanalysis effort, a new MOU would be required along withJapanese legislation to address the use of space for satel-lite-based sensors that would locate and calculate the tra-jectories of theater ballistic missiles. Previously institutedJapanese Diet resolutions expressly prohibit the milita-rization of outer space. Changing this legislation couldprove to be a formidable task given the inordinate amountof time and negotiation required to conclude the agreementfor the current, relatively benign, cooperative effort. Also,future acquisition phases of a TMD system will be muchmore costly than the roughly $70M set of R&D activitiesand, if the ongoing Japanese recession and banking crisiscontinues, a decision to continue will be extremely difficultto make. Additionally, journeying further down the path ofjoint TMD development and deployment will certainly en-counter even more bellicose rhetoric and missile deploy-ments by Beijing. In discussing the US-Japan TMD coop-eration, Takemi stated “We are always very careful toconduct our defence policies to avoid unnecessary misun-derstandings among neighbouring countries.”41 Recentdiscussions with officials of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs and Air Staff College confirmed Takemi’s inference tothe reality that Japanese decision making is clearly influ-enced by anticipated Chinese reactions. Given that theJapanese governmental system operates in a slow and se-date manner with politicians and bureaucrats all too oftenrelying on tactics of delay as opposed to tough decisionmaking, Japan’s long-term participation with the UnitedStates in fielding a regional TMD system is far from cer-

KIZIAH 15

tain. As the authors of a July 1999 Far Eastern EconomicReview article on TMD pessimistically state, “bringingNortheast Asia under a missile-defense umbrella remainsa distant American dream at best, and a chimera atworst.”42

South Korea and Theater Missile Defense

Whereas the United States has had some significant re-cent successes in gaining Japanese cooperation on a re-gional TMD system, the South Korean government hascontinued to shun US efforts to gain its cooperation. SouthKorea’s Minister of Defense Chun Yong Tack, clearly indi-cated in March 1999 that his country would not partici-pate with the United States or Japan in any regional TMDprograms, citing the following rationale: “Pursuing theTMD is not an effective countermeasure against North Ko-rean missiles. It can also arouse concern from neighboringcountries.”43 Unfortunately, given the nature and proxim-ity of the North Korean threat, developing a regional an-tiballistic missile shield that is sufficiently protective ofSouth Korea is complicated and costly, and perhaps infea-sible. The central military threat to South Korea consistsof North Korea’s short-range Scud missiles and massiveamounts of artillery and multiple-rocket launchers locatedjust 50 km from Seoul. South Korean military analystshave concluded that none of the TMD systems can effec-tively counter them. Even though the US government hasrepeatedly tried to convince the South Korean officials thatit believes there are viable TMD architectures, the SouthKorean officials are unconvinced. They have made it clearthat they view the US-proposed TMD options such asTHAAD, PAC-3, or sea-based systems as unproved, costly,and inadequate for deterring North Korean missile attacksagainst their country.44 Additionally, given the magnitudeof the threat they face, the South Koreans have indicatedthat concern about Chinese and North Korean ballisticmissiles/WMD capable of striking Japan or the UnitedStates is not their highest priority. And perhaps most im-portantly, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung is keenlyaware that his country’s participation in a US-Japan-South Korea regional TMD program could anger China—he


needs China’s assistance in persuading North Korea to bemore responsive to his “sunshine policy” peace initia-tives.45 Recent discussions with US embassy personnel,Republic of Korea, clearly highlighted that South Koreanofficials were indeed concerned with Chinese reactions tothe current US-Japan cooperative TMD program and tothose Chinese actions that may arise in response to anypotential South Korean involvement in a cooperative, re-gional TMD program. Specifically, one embassy officialpointed out that the United States and Japan are alreadyconfronting real and potentially serious issues with theChinese over their joint TMD venture, and the South Ko-reans are avoiding any involvement.

The South Korean military’s preferred method for deal-ing with the North Korean threat is a deterrent force con-sisting of indigenously produced MRBMs capable of strik-ing critical targets throughout North Korea. In early 1999,a South Korean National Security Council official told aDefense News reporter, “We need to have a deterrent capa-bility. Our government wants a missile capable of reachingPyongyang and beyond. . . . If North Korea attacks, wewant to initiate a counter-offensive action as quickly aspossible.”46 Although South Korea has been developing amedium-range missile since 1989—the Hyonmu project—their efforts have been constrained by a 1990 US-SouthKorean agreement restricting Seoul’s domestically pro-duced missiles to a maximum range of 180 km.47 These re-strictions are part of the US’s nonproliferation efforts andare currently contentious with the South Koreans. NorthKorea’s August 1998 test firing of the Taepo Dong-1 revi-talized and strengthened their resolve to persuade theUnited States to remove the restrictions. On 10 April 1999,South Korea test fired the Hyonmu (NHK-2). Although itonly covered a range of 40 km, the United States deter-mined that the South Korean military had only partiallyfueled the missile, and that its true range was closer to 300km, exceeding the 180-km restriction.48

Trying to adhere to its nonproliferation goals, the UnitedStates expressed a willingness to accept South Korean de-velopment of 300-km range missiles, but only with theconditions of transparency in their R&D programs andtheir membership in the Missile Technology Control

KIZIAH 17

Regime (MTCR).49 A senior official of South Korea’s Min-istry of National Defense aptly expresses South Korea’sview on these conditions: “As a matter of national pride, wecannot agree to transparency conditions. Our people willview this as an infringement of sovereignty.”50 Additionally,many South Korean officials are hesitant about joining theMTCR, concerned that membership would limit their mis-sile development options. Thus, they are advocating acqui-sition of missile technologies from other countries such asRussia, France, and Israel, and circumventing the UnitedStates and its nonproliferation demands. On 1 February2000, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Company andthe French group Thomson-CSF launched a joint venturedefense firm that will manufacture components for indige-nous South Korean air-to-ground missiles. This is a wa-tershed event for South Korea’s missile development pro-gram and is the first-ever transfer of non-US missile-relatedtechnologies to the country.51 Fundamentally, US andSouth Korean leadership appear to have different strate-gies to deal with the North Korean ballistic missile/WMDthreat. Obtaining Seoul’s participation in a cooperativeTMD development and deployment effort makes dealingwith Japan appear to be a “walk in the park.”

The Chinese Factor

As if the United States did not have its hands full in sim-ply trying to forge a cooperative US-Japan-South KoreaTMD venture, the associated issues with China seem to in-crease daily at an exponential rate. Not surprisingly, eventhough China is clearly intent on modernizing and im-proving the capabilities of its ballistic missiles, which serveas a principal component of its military forces, and is itselfpursuing missile defenses, the Chinese leadership is fiercelyopposed to, and is vigorously campaigning throughout theinternational community against any activities by theUnited States, Japan, and South Korea on a NortheastAsian regional TMD. As a 1999 Nixon Center panel (one ofthe members was Adm David Jeremiah, Retired, formervice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and commanderin chief of the Pacific Fleet) on TMD highlighted, the United


States must ultimately act in its own interests to protect it-self and key allies from ballistic missiles/WMD, but shouldbe sensitive to the concerns of China and other nations.52

In the remainder of this paper I discuss some of the keydifferences between the views of the United States, Japan,and China with regard to fielding a Northeast Asian re-gional TMD FoS (South Korea is not included since it is notcooperating with the United States and Japan and doesnot share the same view on the efficacy of a TMD systemfor the region).

A fundamental difference exists between the UnitedStates and China on their views of the role of a TMD sys-tem in enhancing regional security and stability. US offi-cials and analysts argue that a US-Japan regional TMDsystem and strengthened alliance serve as a defensive de-terrence to aggressive actions in the region and thus pro-motes security and stability. Diametrically opposed to thisview, the Chinese assert that missile defenses, especially acooperative US-Japan TMD system, do not contribute toEast Asian security and are destabilizing. They insist thatdeployment of a TMD system would fuel an offense-defensearms race—a spiraling competition of ballistic missiles andantimissile defenses.

China’s strongly divergent view is to some degree a man-ifestation of the intense, historically based distrust andanimosity between the Chinese and Japanese. Because ofJapan’s brutal occupation of China before and duringWorld War II and its refusal to officially acknowledge andapologize for its imperial past, the Chinese government forover 50 years has consistently conducted a campaign ofanti-Japanese media programming for its citizens. Conse-quently, the Chinese people—across the full spectrumfrom oldest to youngest—collectively have a firmly incul-cated, negative and suspicious view of Japan and its peo-ple.53 Therefore, Chinese officials regard any Japanese mil-itary development, even defensive systems, as dangerous.They fear that any greater military role assumed by theJapanese in the US-Japan alliance, as cooperative TMDwould necessarily entail, could erode Japan’s military self-restraint and serve as a stepping stone for Japan’s returnto militarism and emergence once again as a great militarypower, perhaps within the first quarter of the twenty-first

KIZIAH 19

century. To respond to this growing Japanese militarypower, China feels that it would have to continue to in-crease and strengthen its offensive forces. Additionally,Chinese analysts have argued that the so-called defensiveTMD technologies can be used by Japan to build offensivemissiles to threaten China’s interests in the region.

Chinese, US and Japanese officials and analysts alsohold different views of the regional threats and the ration-ale for deploying a TMD system. Citing North Korea’s Au-gust 1998 test firing of the Taepo Dong-1 over Japaneseterritory, the United States and Japan contend that thereis a growing missile threat from rogue nations and a threatof accidental or unauthorized nuclear launches, especiallyfrom China, which together more than justify the need todeploy a regional TMD umbrella to protect Japan, US per-sonnel deployed in Northeast Asia, other allies and friends,and facilities. The Chinese believe the US and Japanese of-ficial views of the North Korean threat are merely a ruse todevelop and deploy a regional TMD system aimed at coun-tering China’s growing power and influence in the region.After all, the phrase “regional TMD” implies protectionagainst ballistic missiles fired from any country in the re-gion. Statements such as Seizaburo Sato’s, a security spe-cialist at the Institute for International Policy Studies,Tokyo, validate China’s suspicions: “North Korea providesa good excuse, but as a matter of fact the primary target isChina.”54 The Chinese assert that if the threat is solelyNorth Korean, then Japan’s existing TMD systems providesufficient protection. Countering, US analysts argue thatJapan’s current land-based TMD systems, the PAC-2Pluses, are insufficient to protect against North Koreanmissile attacks and are deployed in an air-defense vice anantimissile mode.55 Additionally, the Chinese note that theregional TMD system currently being cooperatively ex-plored by the United States and Japan is, in effect, anNMD for Japan.

Perhaps the most important complicating issue betweenthe United States, China, and Japan with respect to thecurrent US-Japanese plans for cooperative TMD develop-ment is China’s view of this effort with respect to Taiwan.Ultimately, the Chinese leadership would like to regaincontrol of what it considers to be a renegade province. For


China, unification with Taiwan is a cherished nationalgoal. In the past China’s leaders have threatened the useof force if Taiwan formally declared independence, a Chi-nese government white paper released in February 2000broadened the reasons that Beijing considered would jus-tify the use of military force—specifically, “if Taiwan’s au-thorities refused indefinitely ‘the peaceful settlement ofcross-Straits reunification through negotiations.’ ”56 Be-lieving that a US-Japan TMD system will also be clearly de-signed to counter China’s ballistic missiles, then it wouldeliminate Beijing’s only credible military option to bringTaipei to the negotiating table on China’s terms. Reinforc-ing this belief is the joint US-Japanese decision to pursueR&D on an upper-tier, NTW-like TMD system. Such aship-based system would have wide-area defensive cover-age and be highly mobile; it could therefore be movedquickly to thwart Chinese actions against Taiwan. TheChinese argue that, even if there is no US or Japanese in-tent at the present time to use a missile defense system toprotect Taiwan in the event of a cross-strait crisis, a ship-based TMD system will clearly provide the United Statesand Japan such a capability which they may then chooseto use. Furthermore, based on extensive interviews con-ducted in 1996 and 1998 with military and civilian ana-lysts in Chinese government think tanks and academi-cians at leading Chinese institutions, Christensenconcludes that Chinese officials view the Japanese as morelikely than the United States to oppose Taiwan’s reintegra-tion with the mainland. Christensen supports his conclu-sion with the following:

Taiwan is a former Japanese colony (1895–1945). It is near inter-national sea-lanes that are important to Japan. In addition, . . .Japan has a strategic interest in preventing Taiwan’s high-technol-ogy and capital-rich economy from linking politically with the main-land. Moreover, some Chinese analysts view Taiwan as havinggeostrategic significance for Japan as a potential ally because of itslocation near the Chinese mainland.57

Perhaps of even greater concern to Beijing than the useof missile defenses by the United States or Japan in a pos-sible future China-Taiwan contingency is that defensiveweapons, such as a TMD system, deployed by Taiwan’s al-lies and friends may bolster Taiwanese leadership’s confi-

KIZIAH 21

dence to declare permanent independence from China.58

Preventing Taiwan from legitimizing the current territorialstatus quo, that is, de facto independence, is a high-priorityChinese security goal as evidenced by their ever increasingcoastal ballistic missile deployments near Taiwan andtheir frequent veiled threats indicating a willingness to riskwar to prevent others from intervening in their internal af-fairs. And Beijing’s concerns and rhetoric do not appear tobe diminished by the US’s “three no’s” policy that includesno support for Taiwan’s independence.59

Summary and Conclusions

As emphasized in the Secretary of Defense’s 1998 An-nual Report to the President and the Congress, ballistic mis-siles and the WMD and advanced conventional warheadsNorth Korea and China can deliver already pose a seriousthreat for US deployed armed forces, allies and friends,and US overseas facilities. Despite the US’s extensive non-and counterproliferation efforts, this threat is continuallyincreasing. Responding to the urgency of this immediatethreat, the DOD places its highest priority for ballistic mis-sile defenses on developing and deploying regional TMDsystems. The DOD’s policy and acquisition strategy are toresearch, develop, and field TMD systems cooperativelywith its allies for the benefits of burden sharing and in-creased system effectiveness, strengthened US-allied secu-rity relationships, enhanced US international counterpro-liferation efforts, and system interoperability between theUnited States and its allies. Nonetheless, because of theseriousness of the theater ballistic missile threat, evenwithout allied cooperation, the United States intends tofield regional TMD systems, especially in Northeast Asia.

For the last 10 years, US officials have worked diligentlywith the Japanese and South Koreans to establish a coop-erative acquisition program that would lead to deploymentof a single, integrated Northeast Asian regional TMD FoSto counter the ballistic missile/WMD threats of NorthKorea and China. Both countries have clearly demon-strated the strategic importance they place on their missilearsenals, the national priorities and commensurate re-


sources for improving and increasing their capabilities,and the willingness to use them in threatening waysagainst the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Tai-wan. The United States has succeeded for the short termin securing a cooperative TMD R&D program with Japan.It is far too early to predict whether or not this cooperativeventure will continue through all acquisition phases andresult in deployment of some joint, regional TMD FoS. Forsound reasons from their perspective, South Korea’s lead-ers are adamantly refusing to partner with the UnitedStates and Japan in developing and fielding a regionalTMD system and, instead, are pursuing development of anindigenous, offensive missile deterrent capability againstPyongyang.

The US’s success with Japan has come at the cost of in-creasing the tensions between itself and China and be-tween Japan and China. The Center for NonproliferationStudies Conference Report of the Second US-China Confer-ence on Arms Control, Disarmament and Nonproliferation,held in 1999, concludes that “the current controversy [overTMD] has escalated to the point at which it represents aserious threat to international security.”60 Although I wouldnot categorize the TMD-heightened tensions as a seriousinternational security threat, Chinese officials are boister-ously appealing to the international community to opposethe United States led cooperative development of a TMDsystem because of their perception of the dangerous desta-bilizing effects it would generate if deployed in the North-east Asian region. Heightening China’s concerns and fuel-ing its rhetoric is the US-Japanese choice of TMD systemsfor their three-year R&D effort—a sea-based and mobileNTW-like system. Although ostensibly chosen as the mostcost-effective TMD system to counter the North Koreanthreat, this system would also be extremely effective andeasily positioned to counter Chinese ballistic missiles,thus mitigating China’s only means of coercing Taiwanover the next 15 to 20 year period until China has acquiredmore robust air and naval forces. To indicate their seriousconcerns about the impact a future US-Japan TMD capa-bility may have on their ability to reintegrate Taiwan, theChinese have issued numerous veiled threats about theirwillingness to risk war over Taiwan.

KIZIAH 23

Given that the US-Japan cooperative TMD program ismerely a three-year R&D effort at this point in time, withcontinued US-Japan cooperation beyond the R&D phasetenuous and uncertain, dealing with the Chinese concernsin a low-level fashion is probably sufficient. However, as acooperative US-Japan (or US only) deployment of a North-east Asian regional TMD begins to realistically materialize,the United States and Japan will need to seriously engagethe Chinese and address their concerns. Although Chineseintentions will probably never be clear, reintegration of Tai-wan into China has been and still is a repeatedly and em-phatically declared Chinese national priority. Thus, a pos-sibility the United States and Japan need to consider isthat continued pursuit of a regional TMD capability with-out sincerely addressing Chinese concerns could push theChinese to move forcefully against the Taiwanese well be-fore a TMD system is deployed and the threat of their bal-listic missile arsenal is diminished—a move that the Chi-nese would perhaps never make otherwise. Although Ipersonally think that the probability of Beijing using forceagainst Taiwan is extremely low,61 with or without TMDdeployment, it is not an impossibility. According to a re-cent Washington Times article, a Pentagon study of some600 Chinese strategic writings by 200 Chinese militaryand party leaders revealed an extreme distrust of theUnited States.62 Some of the military writings referred tothe United States as a hegemon on par with Nazi Germany.And although stating that they wished to avoid a head-onconfrontation with the United States until around 2030,Chinese military strategists noted that a war between theUnited States and China could erupt over Taiwan. Addi-tionally, David Lampton, Nixon Center Director of ChineseStudies, recently testified before the US Senate Committeeon Foreign Relations: “Beijing, I believe, currently is willingto lose a conflict with the United States [rather] than idlysit by and watch its long-term aspirations regarding Tai-wan be ignored or jettisoned.”63

Obviously, while proceeding forward with developmentof a regional TMD system, the United States and Japanneed to increase their efforts in engaging Beijing and build-ing mutual trust between political and military leaders. Re-newed military-to-military talks and forums such as the


April 1999 Second US-China Conference on Arms Control,Disarmament and Nonproliferation sponsored by the Mon-terey Institute for International Studies are excellent ap-proaches for building trust and resolving the real differ-ences between the United States, Japan, and China onChina’s ballistic missile modernization and deploymentsand US-Japanese TMD activities. Building the necessarytrust and resolving differences will be a long-term effort,but time is one resource that all three have in common—2012 is the earliest that the United States and Japan willbe able to deploy a regional TMD system, and China’sleaders have consistently shown that they are willing toallow time for the peaceful reunification of Taiwan intoChina as long as they perceive that they are progressingtowards this cherished national goal. Although I am opti-mistic that the United States unilaterally or in cooperationwith Japan (and other friends and allies) could deploy a re-gional TMD in Northeast Asia without provoking war withChina, a historical example that may bear some relevancyto the current situation repeatedly surfaces in mythoughts: During October 1950, the Truman administra-tion chose to ignore repeated warnings from the Chinese,convinced that since the United States did not intend tomove offensively against China and could communicatethis clearly to Beijing, the Chinese would not intervene mil-itarily in response to American forces crossing the 38th par-allel into northern Korea. As we know, the Chinese ultimatelymoved from merely warning to acting, with extremely un-pleasant and enduring consequences for all involved.

Notes

1. CIA Report on the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States Through2015, September 1999, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 11 January 2000, availablefrom http://www.usconsulate.org.hk/uscn/others/1999/0909.htm. TheTaepo Dong-1 MRBM derives its name from the North Korean easterncoastal town of Taepo Dong which is about 10 kilometers from a facility usedfor test firing ballistic missiles.

2. National Institute for Defense Studies, East Asian Strategic Review1998–1999 (Tokyo, Japan: Defense Agency, 1999), 64–65. Although nocountry could verify that North Korea had orbited a small satellite, theUnited States and South Korea publicly stated that North Korea hadfailed in its attempt to orbit a small satellite with the Taepo Dong missile.Countering the US and South Korean statements, the Japanese DefenseAgency concluded that “although the theoretical possibility of putting an

KIZIAH 25

extremely small object into orbit by the launch method (employed byNorth Korea) cannot be ruled out entirely, the possibility that the ballis-tic missile carried a satellite capable of performing some significant func-tion including communications and Earth observations is small. And it ishighly likely that North Korea had launched the ballistic missile primarilyfor the purpose of testing various technology with a view to extending therange of its ballistic missiles.“

3. Written Statement of Adm Dennis C. Blair, commander in chief, USPacific Command, in House, House Armed Services Committee on FiscalYear 2000 Posture Statement, 3 March 1999.

4. Evan Medeiros, Second US-China Conference on Arms Control,Disarmament and Nonproliferation: Missiles, Missile Defenses and Re-gional Stability, Conference Report, April 1999, n.p.; on-line, Internet,21 January 2000, available fromhttp://www.cns.miis.edu/cns/ projects/eanp/conf/uschina2/report.htm.

5. Richard D. Fisher Jr., “Building a More Secure Asia Through Mis-sile Defense,” The Heritage Foundation Asian Studies Center Back-grounder, no. 138, 24 October 1995, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 10 January2000, available from http://www.heritage.org/library/archives/asc/asc_138.pdf. In 1985, then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger in-vited Australia, Japan, and South Korea to participate in the StrategicDefense Initiative Program. Of the three invitees, only Japan respondedpositively. Beginning in 1987, Japan allowed its relevant private compa-nies to participate in missile defense architecture studies with the US De-partment of Defense.

6. The White House, A National Security Strategy for a New Century(Washington, D.C., December 1999), 34-37; and Department of Defense,The United States Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region (Wash-ington, D.C.: Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense [Office of Inter-national Security Affairs], November 1998), 7-8.

7. Thomas J. Christensen, “China, the US-Japan Alliance, and theSecurity Dilemma in East Asia,” International Security 23, no. 4 (Spring1999): 50.

8. Ibid., 51.9. Statement of The Honorable Jacques S. Gansler, under secretary of

defense for acquisition and technology, in House, House Armed ServicesSubcommittees on Research and Development and Procurement, FY 2000Budget for Ballistic Missile Defense, 25 February 1999, n.p.; on-line, Inter-net, 10 January 2000, available from http://www.acq.osd.mil/ousda/testi-monies/bmd_testimony_final.htm. The Honorable Gansler stated, “In lightof the widespread deployment of theater ballistic missiles today, the Depart-ment’s immediate missile defense priority is to develop, procure, and deployTheater Defense systems to protect forward-deployed elements of the USarmed forces, as well as allies and friends, against cruise and ballistic mis-siles (as well as aircraft).”

10. The United States Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Re-gion, 24.

11. “North Korea, US to Meet on Missile Issues,” Arms Control Today,July/August 1999, 29.

12. “Japan Concerned Over N. Korea Biochemical Warheads,” 14 Sep-tember 1999, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 12 January 2000, available fromhttp://tmd.ggwdp.net/tmd25.htm#Japan Concerned Over N. Korea Bio-chemical Warheads.

13. “US Official Concerned on N. Korea Nuke Potential, China LikelySupplier,” Inside China Today, 5 February 2000, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 8


February 2000, available from http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=132214.

14. Stephen A. Cambone, “The United States and Theatre Missile De-fence in Northeast Asia,” Survival 39, no. 3 (Autumn 1997): 66–84. Seealso Michael Jonathan Green and Nagashima Akihisa, “Key Areas toWatch in Japan-US Security Relations,” Japan Quarterly, January-March1999, 17–22 and “US Official Concerned on N. Korea Nuke Potential,China Likely Supplier.” In the CIA report released in February 2000, it isstated that the US intelligence community assesses that North Korea hasproduced enough plutonium for at least one, and possibly two, nuclearweapons.

15. Taewoo Kim, “South Korea’s Missile Dilemmas,” Asian Survey 39,no. 3 (May–June 1999): 486–503.

16. Richard D. Fisher Jr., “Time to Stop North Korea’s Missile Black-mail,” The Heritage Foundation Executive Memorandum, no. 550, 8 Sep-tember 1998, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 12 January 2000, available fromhttp://www.heritage.org/library/execmemo/pdf/em_550.pdf.

17. Cambone, 67.18. Richard D. Fisher Jr., “China Increases Its Missile Forces While Op-

posing US Missile Defense,” The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, no.1268, 7 April 1999, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 12 January 2000, available fromhttp://www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1268es.html.

19. Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat, National Air Intelligence Cen-ter NAIC-1031-0985-99, April 1999, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 10 September1999, available from http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/missile/naic/index.html. The DF-15 is alternately referred to as the M-9 or CSS-6.Likewise, the DF-11 is also designated as the M-11 or CSS-7. See alsoDavid G. Wiencek, Dangerous Arsenals: Missile Threats In and From Asia,Bailrigg Memorandum 22 (Lancaster, United Kingdom: Centre for Defenceand International Security Studies, 1997), 11–20.

20. Fisher, “China Increases Its Missile Forces While Opposing USMissile Defense.”

21. Gary Klintworth, “To TMD or Not to TMD,” Free China Review,September 1999, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 21 January 2000, available fromhttp://www.fas.org/news/taiwan/1999/R9909p42.htm.

22. Fisher, “China Increases Its Missile Forces While Opposing USMissile Defense.”

23. Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat.24. Ibid.25. Fisher, “China Increases Its Missile Forces While Opposing US

Missile Defense.” Fisher provides convincing evidence that the Chineseare probably pursuing MIRVing of the DF-5. He obtained possible evi-dence that China is developing new, smaller reentry vehicles when at-tending the 1998 Zhuhai Air Show. Also, the Chinese Long March CZ-2C/SC SLV used to place 10 (as of April 1999) Iridium communicationssatellites on orbit is a slightly modified version of the DF-5 ICBM. Andboth government and industry sources have stated that the Iridiumlaunch bus could be quickly converted for small nuclear warheads.

26. Ibid.27. Wiencek, 8.28. Ibid.29. “Chapter 6: Missile Defenses,” 1998 Secretary of Defense Annual Re-

port to the President and the Congress, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 21 January2000, available from http://www.fas.org/man/docs/adr_99/chap6.html.

KIZIAH 27

30. Stephanie Mann, “Missile Defense: US & Asia,” 18 March 1999, n.p.;on-line, Internet, 21 January 2000, available from http://www.fas.org/news/japan/990318-japan-tmd.htm.

31. The Honorable Paul G. Kaminski, under secretary of defense foracquisition and technology, “Cooperating in a Competitive Environment,”remarks, Center for Strategic and International Studies Inaugural Con-ference on From Shadows to Substance: Defining an Action Plan forTransatlantic Defense Cooperation, 27 February 1995, n.p.; on-line, In-ternet, 21 January 2000, available from http://www.acq.osd.mil/ousda/speech/competitive_env.html.

32. Green and Akihisa, 21.33. Fisher, “Building a More Secure Asia Through Missile Defense.”34. Michael C. Sirak, “United States, Japan Finalize Deal on Navy

Theater Wide Cooperation,” Inside Missile Defense 5, no. 17 (25 August1999): 12.

35. Robert Wall, “US, Japan Agree on Cooperative Missile Defense,”Aviation Week & Space Technology 151, no. 8 (23 August 1999): 46.

36. Michael C. Sirak, “US-Japan Cooperation on TMD ResearchAwaits Diet Budget Process,” Inside Missile Defense, 27 January 1999, 3.

37. “Standard Missile,” n.p.; on-line, Internet, 12 January 2000, avail-able from http://www.flthlpdsk.chinalake.navy.mil/help2/weapons/surflaunch/standard.htm,

See also “Navy Theater-Wide Missile Defense (NTWMD),” n.p.; on-line,Internet, 12 January 2000, available from http://www.boeing.com/de-fense-space/missiles/ntwmd/index.htm. The Standard Missile is an all-weather, ship-launched, medium- to long-range, fleet air defense missilesystem family that provides advanced air defense for an entire fleet area.On 24 January 1997, the Navy successfully demonstrated a TMD capa-bility when a modified Standard Missile-2 Block IV destroyed an in-flightLance theater ballistic missile. The NTW system will use a new missiledesignated the Standard Missile-3. The Standard Missile-3 will be devel-oped from the Standard Missile-2 Block IV by removing the warhead andradar seeker from the nose and replacing it with a third-stage kick motorplus kinetic kill vehicle and modifying the associated software.

38. Sirak, “United States, Japan Finalize Deal on Navy Theater WideCooperation,”12.

39. Information is derived from personal discussions with embassypersonnel in March 2000 during an Air War College Regional Studies tripto Japan and South Korea.

40. Shawn W. Crispin and Susan V. Lawrence, “In Self-Defence,” FarEastern Economic Review 162, no. 26 (1 July 1999): 24.

41. Ibid.42. Ibid.43. “S. Korea Refuses Participation in TMD,” Jane’s Defence Weekly

31, no. 11 (17 March 1999): 16.44. Barbara Opall-Rome, “Seoul Seeks Medium-Range Missile Force,”

Defense News 14, no. 9 (8 March 1999): 1. These same points were made byUS embassy personnel in Seoul, Republic of Korea, when I asked them inMarch 2000 about prospective South Korean participation in a US-Japan-South Korea cooperative TMD development and deployment program.

45. Shim Jae Hoon and Shawn W. Crispin, “Different Drummer,” FarEastern Economic Review 162, no. 26 (1 July 1999): 26.

46. Opall-Rome, 1.47. Capt George A. Hutchinson and Craig M. Brandt, “International

Armament Cooperation and Theater Missile Defense: Why South Korea is


Reluctant to Join the Club,” Air Force Journal of Logistics 23, no. 3 (Fall1999): 24. See also “South Korea,” n.p.; on-line, Internet, 21 January2000, available from http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/missile/skorea.htm.Through reverse engineering and modifications of US-supplied Nike Her-cules surface-to-air missiles, South Korea has produced two versions ofa two-stage, solid-fuel surface-to-surface missile. They are designatedNHK-1 and NHK-2 with ranges of 180 and 260 km and payloads of 500and 450 kg, respectively.

48. Hoon and Crispin, 26.49. “The Missile Technology Control Regime,” The Arms Control Asso-

ciation Background Paper, July 1999, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 21 January2000, available from http://www.armscontrol.org/FACTS/mtcr.html.The Missile Technology Control Regime is an informal export controlarrangement among 32 nations, including some of the world’s most ad-vanced suppliers of ballistic missiles and missile-related materials andequipment. The regime is designed to stem the spread of ballistic andcruise missiles capable of delivering a 500-kilogram payload 300 km ormore, by establishing a common export control policy (the guidelines) anda shared list of controlled items (the annex) that each country implementswith its own national legislation. The MTCR is neither an internationaltreaty nor a legally binding agreement. MTCR members voluntarily pledgeto adopt the regime’s export guidelines and to restrict the export of itemscontained in the regime’s annex. While all nations have been encouragedto abide by the MTCR’s terms, not all states have been invited to becomeformal regime members. A number of nonmember states have made pub-lic and legislative commitments to adhere unilaterally to the MTCR Guide-lines and Annex. South Korea is one of these nonmember adherents.

50. Opall-Rome, 1.51. Jun Kwan-Woo, “Korean and French Firms Plan Missile Venture,”

Space Daily, 7 February 2000, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 8 February 2000,available from http://www.spacer.com/spacecast/news/korea-00c.html.

52. Greg May, “Thinking About TMD: Relations with China and Asia’sStability,” Nixon Center Program Brief 5, no. 2 (6 January 1999): n.p.; on-line, Internet, 28 December 1999, available from http://www.nixoncen-ter.org/publications/Program%20Briefs/vol5no2TMD.htm.

53. Christensen, 54.54. Cameron W. Barr, “The Concept: An Asian Missile Shield,” Chris-

tian Science Monitor 91, no. 92 (8 April 1999): 12.55. Medeiros. The PAC-2 Plus is a subconfiguration of the PAC-2 Pa-

triot missile defense system. It does not have the enhancements of thePAC-3 system that is currently under development and which will be asignificant advance over the PAC-2. The PAC-3 will incorporate significantradar improvements, software enhancements, advanced remotelaunch/communications capabilities, and joint interoperability withother TMD systems like the THAAD system. Additionally, the PAC-3 willuse a new interceptor armed with a kinetic kill vehicle rather than frag-mentation warheads. See also Report to Congress on Theater Missile De-fense Architecture Options for the Asia-Pacific Region, 8. A comprehensiveanalysis of the architecture requirements for the defense of Japan fromlimited theater ballistic missile attacks by North Korea only (China wasnot included) resulted in a requirement of more than one hundred PAC-3-like TMD systems for countrywide defense. The PAC-3-like configura-tion analyzed consisted of remotely linked PAC-3 systems (for extendedbattlespace) integrated with THAAD-like radars for enhanced cueing in-formation.

KIZIAH 29

56. Steven Mufson and Helen Dewar, “Pentagon Issues Warning toChina: US Officials Criticize Beijing White Paper Backing Use of ForceAgainst Taiwan,” Washington Post, 23 February 2000, 16.

57. Christensen, 63.58. “China Opposes Inclusion of Taiwan in TMD,” Beijing Review 42,

no. 36 (6 September 1999): 7.59. The “three no’s” policy was stated by President William Jefferson

Clinton in Shanghai during the June 1998 Sino-United States summit:no United States support for Taiwan’s independence; no support for twoChinas or one China, one Taiwan; and no support for Taiwanese entranceinto international organizations for which statehood is a prerequisite.

60. Medeiros. This three-day conference was attended by over sixtyUS and Chinese government officials and nongovernmental experts fordiscussions of China’s increasing ballistic missile deployments and thebilateral disputes of the US’s plans to deploy a NMD system and TMDtechnology sharing with Japan and Taiwan. The main goals of the con-ference were to (1) identify the nature and scope of the key differences re-lated to ballistic missile deployments, missile defenses, and regional sta-bility; (2) develop a range of possible solutions to address US defenserequirements and Chinese security concerns; (3) enhance US and Chi-nese understanding of the policy trends and key people and institutionsinvolved in internal discussions about missile deployments, missile de-fenses, and regional security; and (4) promote interactions between USand Chinese arms control officials and experts to exchange informationand insights, coordinate activities, and open new lines of communication.

61. This personal opinion is based on my research for this paper anddiscussions with a retired US Navy admiral who served on the US PacificCommand’s staff. The Chinese do not currently have the capability, norwill they obtain the capability within the next 15 to 30 years, to preventthe United States from responding should they decide to use militaryforce to repatriate Taiwan. And if the United States decided to opposeChina, the Chinese could not prevail. Additionally, China has too manycompelling reasons not to wage war against Taiwan. Around 40,000 Tai-wanese businesses have invested approximately $40 billion within theChinese mainland, contributing substantially to the Chinese leadership’scurrent, top-priority goal of economic modernization. One-third of thetotal output of Taiwan’s information industry is produced by mainlandChinese plants. China is Taiwan’s largest consumer market, and Taiwanis China’s first-ranking supplier. A war against Taiwan would likely resultin China being treated by the international community as a pariah na-tion, rapidly ensuring derailment of this foremost national goal. Lastly,war against Taiwan could lead to the military rearmament of Japan,something China wants to avoid at all costs.

62. Bill Gertz, “Pentagon Study Finds China Preparing for War withUS,” Washington Times, 2 February 2000, 4.

63. David M. Lampton, “Enhancing Global, Regional, and Taiwan Secu-rity for the Twenty-First Century,” testimony before the US Senate Commit-tee on Foreign Relations Hearings on S. 693, The Taiwan Security En-hancement Act, 4 August 1999, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 20 March 2000,available from http://www.nixoncenter.org/publications/testimony/8_4_99tsea.htm.


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